


rise and rise again and again

by road_of_ruin



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman (Movies - Nolan), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Dark, Barry Whump, Barry is rather badass, Falling In Love, Identity Issues, League of Assassins AU, M/M, Mild Language, Past Brainwashing, Protective Oliver, Sexual Tension, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Slow Build, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 15:22:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7320673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/road_of_ruin/pseuds/road_of_ruin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Al Sah-him ventures into the cold mountains to the ancient training grounds of the League of Assassins. There he meets Al Sa'iqa, the Lightning, a young man with arresting green eyes and an unyielding spirit.</p><p>Ra's al Ghul claims the boy has been broken, that he is as heartless as the rest. That Al Sah-him may be a promising heir, but this simple man is the Demon's most favored pet.</p><p>Only Al Sah-him sees into those silent eyes and sees they aren't silent at all. There are secrets there, unbroken, untamed, and addicting enough it could undo the life Al Sah-him has built with each layer he pulls away.</p><p>What he finds underneath just may be worth what follows.</p><p>---</p><p>(or the League of Assassins AU absolutely no one asked for)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of another world, not the canon one. This is a timeline where Oliver was rescued from the island by Amanda Waller and turned into something he despised. This is a timeline where his work under Waller caught the attention of Ra’s al Ghul. This is a timeline where Oliver believed himself to be a such a monster, he willingly kept himself from home and chose a new life with the League. Oliver Queen was the ashes that Al Sah-him would rise from.
> 
> In this vein, this is also a different Barry. A timeline where Barry was struck by lightning and stolen from the clutches of Eobard Thawne by the League. A timeline where Oliver and Barry never met until now. This is a Barry full of secrets, who is more than he seems. Only Oliver seems to see through him, but that is, perhaps, the entire point.
> 
> This is a story about darkness and light, humanity and strength of will. This is about intimacy and the way love changes a person, how it wills that change. About stolen moments and intimate gestures so small yet mean everything.
> 
> Honestly? This is vent fic. This is about pain and survival, twists and turns and two men at the center falling in love in the most dire of places. I’m taking some liberties here, given how much I love the League of Shadows from the Nolan Batman trilogy, a faraway place in the mountains which is closer to the comic canon. So, there is Nanda Parbat, and there is a second place, where this story sits. Snow and cold and warmth between bodies.
> 
> Please enjoy.

_“And when they seek to oppress you_

_And when they try to destroy you,_

_Rise and rise again and again_

_Like the Phoenix from the ashes_

_Until the lambs have become lions_

_and the rule of Darkness is no more.”_

  
— Maitreya The Friend of All Souls, _The Holy Book of Destiny._

 - - -

 

He’s out on the ice. The wind is cold, but he’s shirtless, body thrumming, barefoot. Al Sah-him watches.

He ducks a blow, wipes the next aside with open palm, snapping the wrist before it hits him. His body moves faster than anyone can blink and the man slides away, defeated.

Al Sah-him watches.

Others gather on the terrace, cheering. He is their golden pet, their weapon that is more storm than man. He is young, but he is steel. The air crackles as he moves.

Al Sah-him watches.

He is solid, fast, but not overtly strong. He is clever and quick, but not invincible. Still, he is everything Lord Ra’s had promised. A perfect soldier, a powerful being, a lightning strike born in flesh. His skin bears the testament, scars like a tree branching from his chest over his right shoulder, spreading down his back. When his foot lifts, a scar is there, spidering out from the heel. An exit wound.

He is everything and more than, if the rumors are to be believed. Hidden away in this secret place, he is a most treasured gift.

Al Sah-him watches.

“You are progressing well, brother,” a man tells him, their Lightning, raising a fist to his chest in salute. It’s returned and then he is walking away, helping his opponent to his feet. Bows.

Then green eyes look up at him, lips tinged blue, body white. A storm, maybe, but still encased in weak human form. He gives a nod, waits, an offering. A gift to the Demon’s Hand.

Al Sah-him watches, wonders. Assesses. Then he nods.

A fleeting look crosses those eyes. Something alive, something _wild_ and uncaged. Then it’s gone and the soldier’s mask is in place as he steps from the ice to the snow covered steps of the training hall.

His body is lean, rippling with untapped power, shivering with it. The man’s breath clouds with each steady exhale. He is cold, but he is a storm. It will pass, as all things must.

And Al Sah-him watches.

“Is he to your liking, my brother?” says the guard to his right, passive and without judgement. A true warrior of the Demon.

“It’s a start at the very least,” Al Sah-him concedes, giving the trainer a nod of acceptance as he too steps from the ice. Al Sah-him watches this, watches from above on the terrace, wrapped in a fine fur cloak and warm fires behind, lighting the morning as they all wait for the sun to rise. “Continue with his training. This is Ra’s al Ghul’s wish, that his pet remain in form.”

For what, he can only guess, but that is why he is here, after all. To _guess._

“But of course, brother,” the guard nods and lifts his hand, wordlessly passing the order on to a lower soldier, who bows and leaves.

Below, the injured man is met by another, who cradles his hand with an almost kindness, soft whispered words between them and then they’re forehead to forehead, sharing the same air. Comfort.

Al Sah-him watches, turns away.

“You may leave,” he tells his guards and the others that have amassed. “Have my breakfast delivered to my chambers.”

He gets a small army of salutes and one voice. “Brother.”

He retreats far into the depths of the mountainside villa, to the cool rock that burns with torches. He takes one and walks down, down, _down,_ to where the air is hot and the trickle of water can be heard.

The first spring of life glitters in the firelight. Al Sah-him lowers his gloved hand to the surface, disrupts the flow of ripples.

So many have died for this water. So many who have never been granted a taste. For his part, he has drank a few drops exactly once, enough to bring him from the claws of death after a death match with his Master.

Ra’s had surprised him, that way. Revived him with a most precious gift. And with patience and an near ageless understanding, turned Al Sah-him into something worth saving.

And now he is presented with yet another precious gift.

Al Sah-him lifts his hand, watches the water drip from his glove. The reflections of the pool cast green shadows over the walls, green like the eyes of thunder, of the Lightning. Al Sah-him traces a pattern on the smooth rock, fingertips chasing the ever moving light. He remembers labored breathing, of hands slapping at a wrist, the movement blurred with such speed it had made his stomach swoop with surprise. A rare and precious thing indeed.

He’s a fool, he knows, for wanting to say no to it.

Though his frame is lean, all long lines and thin muscle, he is beautiful in the way storms are. Commanding attention simply by being, shaking one’s earth to the core with each clap. But with such a silence as to be undetected until it makes itself known. He is otherworldly and homely all at once, beautiful and tragic and plain.

But those eyes… Al Sah-him is certain of one thing: those are not the eyes of a broken man.

His mask is perfect, but it is just that, a mask. And masks are made to be removed, breakable and flimsy once the string is loosened.

It’s just about finding a sharp enough knife.

Al Sah-him leaves the pool, feeling oddly more unsettled than when he came. The pool has always calmed him, but still his thoughts churn and churn, lost in two eyes that looked up at him. Not in defiance, per se, but something deep, deep enough he has no name for it. And that… bothers him.

The dawn brings little comfort. The food is full of warmth and taste, meant to be hearty and filling. It sits in his stomach like a stone that will not move. He exercises it gone, forcefully, carefully, over and over again until total control is restored.

At noon he leaves for the training hall, weaving between sparring men, adjusting arms, giving nods to those who finish.

And two eyes find him again, wild, fleeting, full of thousands of things Al Sah-him cannot guess at. A staff sings and a too fast body slips away, a blur of movement, a crackle of lightning. _  
_

And Al Sah-him watches.


	2. and when they seek to oppress you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Al Sah-him | (Al-sa-heem)  
> Al Sa'iqa | (al-sai-ah-qua)

They call him Al Sa’iqa, The Lightning that Strikes. He is Ra’s favorite pet, a fact none dispute given the man himself had proclaimed it so.

It’s why he’s here in the mountains, in this ancient training ground. So far removed from the world and prying eyes.

To date, Al Sa’iqa has yet to kill, a fact that is as vexing as it is impressive. There have been a couple accidents surrounding the man, but besides a trainee falling through the ice and another toppling over the side of the cliff edge during a spar, Al Sa’iqa remains unstained.

He simply trains and trains, finding new records to break, snapping bones, stealing back victories, but still he does not advance with the other students, does not bear the mark of the final test. Al Sah-him did not think such a thing was possible with their Master at the head, but there Al Sa’iqa stands, untainted by blood, fluid and graceful from relentless, pointless training. He has not killed, and if Ra’s is to be heeded - which he is - he never will.

It’s… frustrating. Al Sa’iqa burns with power, with promise, yet here he remains, a simple pet to be petted and praised at the whim of their Master. He toils, he trains, and receives no reward. He is viewed with the polite indifference one would give the Master’s dog, not a fellow warrior, by those above him. Only the trainees seem to love him as is right.

For being their Master’s plaything, he has not gained any advantage.

And now this untapped storm of a man is offered to Al Sah-him, to use as he wishes. The sardonic way Ra’s had implied _use_ leaves no room for surprise at his real meaning. Al Sa’iqa is a gift, a source to warm him, fuck him, be fucked and give amusement, if he wishes it.

Fortunately - or perhaps _un_ fortunately for him - Al Sah-him does not wish it.

What he wants is to dig, to push and tug and see what Al Sa’iqa gives back. He cannot kill, the Master has commanded it, but that does not mean he cannot _maim._

What he wants is the promise in that form to be fulfilled. If Al Sa’iqa must be a gift, then he will be turned into a weapon worthy of Al Sah-him, of Ra’s al Ghul, of the League.

And so he watches, waits, listens to the gossip surrounding their pet. Sees the weaknesses, the strengths, and plans accordingly. He sets man after man against the lightning, and when Al Sa’iqa finally falls, it is not without victory.

“You’ve done well.” It’s the first words he’s imparted to the man, and he gives them with a respectful nod. “For a trained dog.”

Murmurs follow this statement, amusement, disbelief perhaps in some corners, but Al Sa’iqa says nothing, just takes the words as he has been taught. No doubt he has heard worse here.

“It is Ra’s al Ghul’s wish for you to be mine,” he continues, walking a slow circle around the man. “To be used, to be fucked, but also to be trained by the Demon’s Hand.”

He stops in front of him to see his reaction, and for a moment there is one, a flare of life in that steady gaze.

“It will be as you wish it,” is the only answer Al Sa’iqa gives, and his voice is shockingly smooth and almost sweet, even though he stands like stone.

Promising, that. And unsettling.

Al Sah-him is close enough to see himself reflected in the green of the man’s eyes, to see those unlabeled things that make him wonder. He realizes they are secrets, powerful and life ending secrets, and he keeps them visible, a taunt, a dare.

Al Sah-him watches, turns away. “Continue your training. You,” he looks to a guard. “Have his things moved to my quarters. From here on out, he will be under my tutelage.”

“Brother,” the man salutes and walks off, another following to help. Al Sah-him returns to walking the room, but his gaze is stolen from him the more Al Sa’iqa moves, breathes, slaps his hands against his opponent, takes a hard blow and nearly crumbles.

A particularly hard shove has him on his back, but in a flash he is standing once more, hands up and ready. Like lightning.

If nothing else, the man is well named, Al Sah-him muses as he walks away, leaving them to training. After all, he has plans to make. Training Al Sa’iqa will bring with it many rumors, most of which will reach Ra’s al Ghul’s eager ear. It means he must be careful to put forth the front he wishes all to see.

He takes an apple from a tray and bites into the flesh, eyes raking over Al Sa’iqa and his long, lean body, and nods to himself, pleased.

\---

Al Sa’iqa comes to him at dusk, a long dark robe resting loosely on his form, low on his bare shoulders. There is a breeze in the room, but the man does not shiver, just stands until Al Sah-him gives him leave to move towards the brazier to warm himself.

He does, bare feet padding softly toward him, and Al Sah-him watches him, the flash of his throat as he swallows, the pulse at his neck, the shift of his body. Rumors were that he was once awkward, gangly, all long limbs that flailed about like a baby deer trying to find its feet. It's surprisingly easy to imagine.

A fawn no more, he stands proud as a stag in rut, waiting in the glow of the fire.

Al Sah-him reaches out to pull down the robe where it lays on the man’s chest, baring the lightning scar for him to see. Wordlessly, he bids him turn in place, eyes raking over the patterns carved into his skin down his back.

“When did this happen?” he asks as Al Sa’iqa turns back to face him. And he finds himself arrested by those eyes once more, alive and striking and utterly without warning, the mask pulled low for him to see.

“Two winters ago,” Al Sa’iqa tells him and there is a hint of a smile on his mouth, even though it does not quirk upwards. Somehow, Al Sah-him knows it’s there and he turns away before his puzzlement breaks over his gaze.

There’s something about Al Sa’iqa he can’t put his finger on, something that leaves him unsettled and yet… wanting. Just what that want is, he has yet to uncover, and for a brief breath, he allows himself to wonder.

When he turns back to face him, he is not the only one once more stone. “I will not fuck you,” he says plainly. “I am here to train you. You will not kill, so you will be taught to wound. This is Ra’s al Ghul’s command.”

Perhaps they both know it truly is not, and for a moment that hint of smile is there again, a lightning strike in his eyes the only indication of… anything.

“It will be as you wish it,” Al Sa’iqa says again and bows his head once in respect. He does not tighten his robe, merely stands there, golden and perfect, eyes searching his face before staring into the fire.

He’s waiting, Al Sah-him realizes, but for what he doesn’t know. And that, irritatingly, only makes that wanting feeling drop away into something brighter, harder to ignore.

“Sleep,” he says finally. “We begin in the morning.”

Another nod, then Al Sa’iqa moves to the large bed and lays within it, a whisper of sound. It is a mark of his training that he falls asleep immediately, breaths slow, face young and guileless. Another secret.

It’s like a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding the moment Al Sa’iqa is dreaming. An invisible string loosened from around his neck he hadn’t felt tighten. Al Sah-him stares and wills exhaustion to take over, but for once it doesn’t listen, and he watches the flames flicker and crack long into the night.

\---

They start before dawn.

He’s never trained on ice, used to the hard ground of the arena, and he takes the lesson as it comes. Al Sa’iqa does not speak, but shows, how to balance, to keep moving, to spread his weight evenly so he does not fall.

With each step of their dance, the ice creaks threateningly, and Al Sa’iqa moves to compensate. It does not take long before Al Sah-him matches him step for step and the true training can begin.

He starts with swords as he himself had been trained, a flurry of steel and lunges. Al Sah-him goes sliding more than once, but turns it into his advantage, forcing the other man to follow, to attack and dodge. Al Sa’iqa keeps pace, but it’s clear the strength that Al Sah-him has is growing too much. Still, he makes no complaint, just takes the beating when it comes.

With a hard kick, he sends the man sliding away, the sword clashing on the frozen surface, and before he can take a step, the ice cracks under his feet and breaks.

And Al Sah-him… goes flying. He hits the snow bank and wheezes as a rock rattles his lungs. Above him, Al Sa’iqa rests on his hands and knees, bracketing Al Sah-him from the broken ice. His face is flushed, eyes dark and gleaming with electricity. It’s breathtaking.

Al Sah-him realizes what’s happened the moment the man slips off him and allows him to sit up. He stares at where he’d been standing, now just a hole of freezing water, and gives Al Sa’iqa a nod.

“You should’ve let me fall,” he says, regaining his feet. “Pain is a lesson.”

“But then I would’ve had to warm you,” is the surprising reply, said in a wry tone, and for the first time, that hint of a smile is more than just a hint, like a kiss in the corner of his upturned mouth. “And you specifically stated no fucking.”

For a wild moment, Al Sah-him almost wants to laugh. It’s absurd, really. He hasn’t laughed since… before.

Instead, he allows his own lips to quirk, which sets those eyes gleaming in all new ways, like stained glass in a storm.

“Come, let’s eat before we switch to staffs,” he offers and strides for the villa, picking up their fallen swords - which apparently had also been flung to shore - on his way up.

Al Sa’iqa is a silent shadow in his wake, his aura tinged with shared amusement. And though he is back to stone when they break fast together, his eyes hold a light that had not been there before.

Al Sah-him watches him, feeling an odd sense of accomplishment for it. He doesn’t understand why.

The feeling refuses to leave as they train through lunch to dinner. They’re attracting stares from the others, knowing looks and whispered rumor. Al Sah-him watches them and knows his front is working. Ra’s will be pleased ot hear his gift has been accepted.

By dusk, Al Sa’iqa is black and blue, panting and pale, and hardly waits for permission to stand at the fire.

“Will you be joining me tonight?” he asks in lieu of goodnight, giving him an unreadable look with far too much to say in his eyes.

It makes Al Sah-him hesitate, makes him lift a thumb to where the man’s lip is split and gently press.

“You’d like me to?” he asks, baiting, and watches the man carefully, trying to see what it takes to pull the mask away.

It doesn’t fall. Al Sa’iqa is about as stubborn as Al Sah-him himself, a lesson learned throughout the hard day. ”It’s your bed,” he merely points out and saunters away, voice like a blade covered in silken smoke. “Do as you wish.”

Then he’s in the bed and asleep, the fading sunset painting him in red and gold. Al Sah-him watches.

It proves to be another sleepless night.

\---

The week passes the same way. The ice is frozen each morning and they spar upon it. Al Sah-him takes the lesson and learns and does not fall through again.

Al Sa’iqa keeps pace, learning what is taught. He grows strong, learns to anticipate each movement Al Sah-him makes, the mark of a true student, a perfect soldier.

It is only in the quiet moments, in shared breaths and gazes, that those secrets appear. Al Sah-him watches for them, but still cannot fathom them. And still Al Sa’iqa waits for him to puzzle him through.

Al Sah-him retreats to the springs to trace his turmoil in the water, finding comfort in the ripples he disrupts. Surrounded by green, he is haunted even here, but manages to leave with his own mask intact.

At night, it is harder. The third night that had passed had finally seen Al Sah-him to his bed. The warmth of the other man has only grown more enticing, like a long lost treasure his body desperately wishes to reclaim.

He trains the want away, meditates in the snow, until he is brought back frozen and near death, mind clear. Al Sa’iqa watches, and he watches right back. It’s a dance the other man is leading him through and he does not understand the steps.

It becomes apparent, in this way, just why Al Sa’iqa was gifted to him. His life in Nanda Parbat had become monotone, stony. Here, death is far closer, the men more intimate. And above them all is the lightning, drawing him helplessly in with those secrets in his eyes.

He almost hates him for it, for the light he finds there so easily tucked away as though it never was. There’s a darkness to him that’s surprising, even in such a place as this, and Al Sah-him finds himself more and more unsettled by the day.

He manages three nights before he once more cannot sleep. Instead he watches, listens, and mediates to the sound of Al Sa’iqa breathing, and tells himself, over and over again, that it is not soothing beyond comprehension, wills himself to believe it, to accept it, to move from it.

He fails.


	3. and when they try to destroy you

It’s one month in when the winds come. Blistering cold and blowing through the villa, the braziers falter and fail to light, covered in ice as they are.

Training is suspended in the grounds until the winter storms pass, leaving the men in their rooms, two by two or three by three, save for those lone souls who meditate in the cold to stay alive.

They train in the room to keep warm, working through sets of swordplay, then staff, then hand to hand. Al Sah-him works him hard, but takes care not to get overly sweaty. The floor bites his bare toes as they move as one in their deadly dance, and when he slips on an ice patch starting to form from fallen sweat, he stops the match.

They’re both breathing hard, sweating and flushed with it. Al Sa’iqa hands him a towel he had lain over the one brazier they have working and they dry off. The heat feels good pressed to his skin, and it makes him think that tonight they will have to sleep closer if they want to survive the cold. He looks up briefly, wondering if he can manage it, and finds Al Sa’iqa watching him, an occurrence more and more frequent of late.

He watches right back. And slowly, that damnable gleam forms in his eyes, taunting with secrets he feels he once knew, but has long forgotten. Al Sa’iqa is like that, so familiar, yet so new all at once. Perhaps the novelty is in the way someone watches him just as closely, seeing something unshared.

Not for the first time, he wonders what this lightning sees.

Something worth smiling at, more often than not, a revelation that he cannot fathom. He is Al Sah-him, the Demon’s Hand. He is not made to inspire smiles.

But smile, Al Sa’iqa does. It is a quiet thing, a butterfly unfolding its wings, fresh and new. It turns his face into something sweet, something soft despite the hard edges.

It’s dangerous and makes that wanting twist into something desperate. Al Sah-him, for once, does not think he can will it away.

“Will you be joining me tonight?” It’s asked in a wry tone, a smile for the echo that it is. Al Sah-him watches his hand gently cup the man’s chin, thumb pressing gently to that full lower lip to honor that echo.

“You’d like me to?” he finds the same words and is rewarded with a fuller smile, one that stretches his mouth pleasantly, shines in his eyes. There’s not one, but two kisses in his lips, one in each corner, begging for touch.

“It’s your bed,” Al Sa’iqa murmurs, lips brushing his thumb, and Al Sah-him almost shivers, fights it down.

“It’s cold, we need to keep warm,” he steps back, willing his stone to return. His hand falls away, but the skin tingles, branded.

“Then come,” Al Sa’iqa says and leads the way. It’s their dance, one leading, the other following. He pulls the blankets down and slides in, meeting his eye.

Again, he waits, waits for him to act. Sliding into the bed feels charged in the moment, but somehow he knows it’s not what Al Sa’iqa is waiting for.

He watches him fall asleep, stretched near his side, breath brushing his arm, and he wonders what it could be.

\---

They lose three men in the night. The bodies are carried to the training square and left to the snow. It’s too frozen to give them a proper burial.

Al Sah-him keeps up a confidant front for the men, meeting with them in the shadows of the villa to break bread and offer confidence. He can see their respect for him grow with each meeting and it’s warm accomplishment he feels when he returns to the room.

Al Sa’iqa is working through tai chi, shirtless and barefoot in the freezing room. The brazier still burns, but is kept near the bed and clothing. The room suffers for it, but they are nothing if adaptable.

Breath clouding, body fluid, he is a marvel to behold. The white light of snow lights him as though lit with bright fire, catching in the tree of scars over his back and shoulder, making it glow.

Al Sah-him watches, counts each breath and beat before stripping to join him, forcing away the shivers as he falls into step beside him and joins.

It is silent for a long hour, just breathing and the shift of fabric of their leggings. It’s not until they finish one set that Al Sa’iqa turns to face him.

His eyes are like fire, like death and life and springtime, a storm of sunlight and blazing want. The breath catches in his lungs and Al Sah-him is forced to take a deeper breath before starting the second set.

Al Sa’iqa creates a perfect mirror, a leaner, more impossible vision of himself that he cannot help but watch. And be watched.

He pushes his palm forward to be met with another and it tingles where their skin touches. Like a kiss.

He’s amazed he even remembers what a kiss feels like, given how long ago his last one was. A usual memory that would pull him under, but for once he stays afloat, lost somewhere in those green eyes.

Al Sa’iqa is waiting, once more, for him to act. He is dancing and Al Sah-him is floundering to the steps.

He realizes too late that they have not moved. The cold has set in, as though to freeze them together like this, palm to palm, eye to eye. It starts with a shiver in the low of his back, painful and wracking, and he forces himself to pull away, to move against the cold, breaking the spell.

And Al Sa’iqa follows, face like stone, eyes full of silence.

\---

Two more fall before the dusk. It’s heavy in his chest as he stands silently over the bodies before the cold winds force him back inside. The men are quiet, keeping to close company, and more than once on the way to his rooms he sees men forehead to forehead, palm to palm, sometimes leaning together in the safety of the villa.

He knows of the intimate ways of the League. Not many women pass the trials and in these mountains there are none to speak of. Sexuality becomes inconsequential when it comes to a willing body and camaraderie.

The men are gentle with each other, usually trainor and younger trainee, but some warriors that most likely have ridden through their life here together. Al Sah-him watches them a long moment before disappearing to his rooms.

Al Sa’iqa drops his robe just as he enters, and while the surprise that momentarily flickers across his eyes seems real enough, it seems more intentional than anything he’s ever done. Al Sah-him lets himself stare a moment at the bare expanse of skin before the man turns away and sinks into bed.

“What are you doing?” he asks, knowing those sheets must be colder than death.

“Reports say it’s going to be cold tonight, the coldest it’s been in about twenty-five years,” comes the soft answer coupled with those waiting eyes. “Body heat is essential.”

Al Sah-him nods at the logic of his words, but it doesn’t dissolve the once again charged atmosphere. He’s more than aware of the way Al Sa’iqa watches him undress, how those eyes trail each article of clothing that puddles to the floor near the brazier.

When he slips inside the bed, the charged feeling comes to a peak. For a moment, he simply watches, wonders, and Al Sa’iqa watches back, waiting. A dance.

He scoots close an inch, waits. Al Sa’iqa takes another inch. Then he does, until they are flush together, bare skin to bare skin, and the feeling has his breath shaking out of him before he can control the tremor.

Al Sa’iqa sighs too, a longing breath, and for a moment he shifts, finding a spot and sinking into it, fitting into his side as though he’s always belonged.

They shouldn’t fit. They’re of a height, eye to eye, and where Al Sah-him is broad, Al Sa’iqa is lean and bony. It should not feel the way it does to have the man with him like this.

But it does.

And Al Sah-him can do little more than helplessly watch the other man settle, perfectly content, their bodies growing warmer with each shared breath, each steady heartbeat, and somehow he knows, suddenly, that this is the beginning of something too big to grasp and hold on to.

What it is, he does not know. Another secret to fit in those eyes that haunt him.

Al Sah-him lets out a long breath, wonders, watches. Al Sa’iqa is asleep before he can whisper goodnight.

\---

The assassin comes just as the storms pass, slipping into his room unseen and attacking him in bed. Before he can even react, Al Sa’iqa is already shoving him out of the way, the long knife punching through his chest in the center. Al Sa’iqa gags but throws the man across the room in a surge of energy.

And then he stands from the bed, a knife in his chest, blood dripping to the floor, and _snarls_.

“You will not touch him again,” he says, voice wavering with pain, but his pose is solid, the warning clear.

Al Sah-him has an arrow through the intruder’s eye before he can strike again and then he catches the lightning as he falls.

It’s odd, the twist in his gut, the panic that flickers against his heart as he listens to Al Sa’iqa wheeze. A bloody hand finds his face, something familiar in the touch, and Al Sah-him leans into it unconsciously, offering this silent comfort to the man who's saved his life.

The guards come in to take the body away and the medical wing is prepped. Al Sah-him carries him through the long hall and personally removes the knife from the man’s chest.

He doesn’t scream the way his eyes do. He is almost silent in shock, low groans and moans of pain his only communication. But his eyes… they scream, loud enough Al Sah-him wants to look away, but cannot. He holds Al Sa’iqa down as they force drink down his throat, medicines and vapors to dull the pain. All the while, he watches Al Sah-him, and Al Sah-him watches back.

When it is done, he sits with him, watching his chest rise and fall. He explains to him how the assassin was one of his Master’s, to keep him from his path. He says to him that the body is being sent back in pieces, a clear message that he is still standing strong, that he will not be pleased at such an outcome unless Al Sa’iqa survives.

It’s seems imperative that he does. Imperative like breathing, for as it stands, he can hardly do so. His unwounded lungs have fallen into the cadence of the other man’s, strangling him. He hates himself, hates Al Sa’iqa, hates Nyssa for sending the assassin and, for a moment, he even hates Ra’s.

When Al Sa’iqa sleeps, the feeling dissipates, only to be replaced by something new. Something liquid and snakelike, dripping into his gut.

Why he’s worried, he doesn’t know. Concern means nothing in this life, yet he feels it.

He’s walking the caverns before he can dwell on it further, down the pathway to the springs. He dips his gloved hand in and pulls it free and stares, watches the beads form and fall away.

He forces himself not to think as he walks back, hand cupped with a few precious drops pooled in his palm. He pulls the blanket down Al Sa’iqa, baring his chest, and tips the life water onto the wound.

It’s already healing, he finds, barely a wound at all. The water hisses and steams and sinks in, until there is nothing left but a scar.

Al Sah-him watches, waits, and wonders. He does not feel better, though it means Al Sa’iqa will live. Instead he feels as raw as the skin newly healed and tries to walk away.

He can’t.

 


	4. like a phoenix from the ashes

It hits him, far into the predawn, what he’s done.

The Lazarus waters are sacred, meant to be guarded. None were to partake, not even on the cusp of death. The life giving water was for Ra’s and Ra’s alone to use at will.

And Al Sah-him had given a few drops away, without thought. Wasted even, given how quickly Al Sa’iqa healed. But he had panicked and that worried him, that he could break the rules so completely for this man of storms.

It was so unlike Al Sah-him and more like…

He turns away from the bed where Al Sa’iqa sleeps and walks to the window, letting the morning cold wash over his skin, numbing him. It’s been a long time since he’s thought of before, but now that the thought is there, he can see the truth of it. Desperate to fix a wrong, reckless and selfish… that is not Al Sah-him, but the ashes that he rose from.

And he’d thought that other self just that, ashes. But there’s something in the way Al Sa’iqa touches him, reaching for a soul that no longer exists… perhaps Oliver Queen is not as buried as he believed.

A soft groan pulls him from his thoughts and he returns to the bed upon seeing the crack of green eyes blinking in the light. He shields the brunt of it with his broad frame, an action that wins him a smile, and he feels it again, that selfish want, the curl of something slick deep inside.

He reaches out, touches his thumb to that lower lip, feeling his smile, and Al Sa’iqa smiles wider until he is something beautiful and godly, golden in the light, and Al Sah-him cannot breathe.

“How did you know he was there?” he has to ask, for even he hadn’t felt the intrusion until it’d been nearly too late.

An odd shadow dims the man's face. “I was awake,” is his easy answer. “I still barely stopped him.”

“You stopped him with your body, at great cost,” Al Sah-him admonishes, but there is none of the usual growl or bite in his voice. It’s soft now, despite everything, and still his thumb traces the man’s mouth. “It seems more training is needed.”

Al Sa’iqa nods to that, but before he can leave, he reaches out and touches Al Sah-him, fingers soft on his arm. “I’m… glad you’re safe,” he murmurs, and there’s a secret there, something he’s not saying that makes his stomach tumble. “I’m glad I was fast enough.”

Something hangs off the end of that, something _more._ But Al Sa’iqa leaves it as it is, giving him a smile before slipping back to sleep to work the rest of the vapors from his system.

Al Sah-him watches, wonders, and flees.

He winds his way to the spring waters, stares down at himself in his reflection.

He is still Al Sah-him. Oliver Queen never had such piercing eyes. Oliver Queen was not strong in his jaw or stance, not in the way Al Sah-him is.

Oliver Queen is ashes; Al Sah-him has risen above.

And perhaps if he wills it hard enough, he will come to believe it again.

\---

They train the next morning, as long as the cold will allow. When the floor gets slippery, they stop and break bread together. Al Sa’iqa is quiet, stone, but sometimes his eyes flicker to watch Al Sah-him, those secrets whirling, that something _more_ teasing in the lights of his eyes.

Al Sah-him watches him back, dares him to speak of it, to lay him raw again and pull out the ashes. He does not.

Instead, he eats, slowly, carefully, one piece after another after another. Usually he goes through his pile in the blink of an eye, but today he doesn’t. He sits and chews and thinks and watches, a perfect mirror to Al Sah-him himself.

“Are you unwell?” Al Sah-him asks, a spike of something piercing through his chest at the thought that there may just be something wrong.

“Just a little tired,” says al Sa’iqa, and as though to accentuate the point further, he yawns, eyes squinting and watering from the force of it.

It’s… charming.

“Come,” he’s moving before he realizes what he’s done, offering a hand to Al Sa’iqa to take and leading him to the bed. He undresses slowly and turns to watch Al Sa’iqa do the same.

The scar is still raw, a red against his pale skin given the cold. Al Sah-him stares and wonders and reaches out to touch. Al Sa’iqa lets him.

It’s terrifying, this simple scar, and he hates it with all his being for making him so weak. He hates what it means, what it almost led to, what it _is_ leading to.

His hand finds the man’s chin, thumb parting his lips. He doesn’t know why he’s upset, only that he is, and this touch screams of uncertainty, a plea. Al Sa’iqa has always seemed to understand. He prays somehow this too will get through.

It does. The man’s eyes close with a huff of a laugh, a smile, and then twinkling eyes, gleaming with light and secrets and promise.

“I’m okay,” is all he says. All he needs to say. Reaffirmation.

“I know,” Al Sah-him sighs, concedes, and lets Al Sa’iqa take the lead once more.

In moments, they are in bed, flesh pressed to flesh, the blanket warming them both. Al Sa’iqa talks idly of nothing, of anything, fingers dancing over his chest.

All the while, Al Sah-him keeps his thumb on the man’s lip, feeling him breathe, speak, and smile.

It feels like forgiveness, salvation, and damnation. Al Sa’iqa is soft and pliant and that should be a problem given the hardness of their bodies, of the world they inhabit.

It is not so. They lay together until Al Sah-him is just as soft, just as quiet and tender, content.

When he dreams, he dreams in green.

\---

It happens again, when the snow starts to clear. The braziers all burn now, warming them all back to life. The training grounds reopen and Al Sah-him trains them back on the ice.

Due to the storms, it is thick and sturdy, giving them the freedom to spar without much worry of falling through. They fight until Al Sah-him has a bruised cheek and Al Sa’iqa has a bleeding nose and the cold is torture on both.

He feels suddenly _indulgent_ , like he could steal away into the shadows and waste a day. The feeling comes as quick as vomit to one’s mouth and leaves just as bitter a taste.

Only Al Sa’iqa seems to notice his souring mood, just as he is always the first to notice anything. Al Sah-him attributes this to all the time they spend training and talking and not - his pride insists that little voice means _nothing -_ because Al Sa’iqa can see right through him, straight to the ashes, to where the remains of him lay in wait.

Suddenly he is exposed, raw, and weak. He excuses himself to the springs to think.

No, not think. Reassess.

“You are not Oliver Queen,” he growls at his reflection. “Oliver Queen is ashes.”

He repeats this until the words die and something in him settles once more.

“He means nothing,” he hears the lie, sees the ripples morph his mouth into a liar’s smile. He hates it and splashes it away with a furious hand.

What reforms is someone new altogether.

“I am Al Sah-him,” he murmurs, but the ripples obscure the reflection's words and it simply stares, unimpressed. “I am not ashes.”

Still it stares, ever moving. He sets his hand back into the water far more softly, disrupting the current enough to get a clear image.

He is fire, not ash. He has risen above. He is Al Sah-him, the Demon’s Hand, the Heartless, the Soulless. Oliver Queen is _dead_.

Only what he sees is not Al Sah-him, nor is it Oliver Queen. It’s somewhere in the middle.

Al Sah-him splashes it gone with a snarl, but not before he witnesses the light in his own eyes, the light so long perished, now returned to him as silently as smoke.

“I am… Al Sah-him,” he says it, and again, and again.

Somewhere, it too had become a lie. He just doesn’t know when.

But if he is not Al Sah-him, then who is he?

\---

Perhaps it should not surprise him that the answer lies with one whose eyes are secrets.

They lay together, close as lovers, idly talking as they wait for sleep. Al Sa’iqa is quiet and watches him, voice gentle and soothing.

Al Sah-him hears him and feels him, thumb pressed to his parted lips. It seems to be the only way he can communicate tonight, after what he witnessed in the water. The sight of his own eyes is just as haunting as those of Al Sa’iqa.

“You seem lost,” his lightning says, murmured and kind, so different from all he’s known. Kindness is not for Al Sah-him to have. “Tell me how I can bring you home again.”

“I have no home,” Al Sah-him tells him, gruff but without bite. He gets a smile for it, which only deepens the feeling. Those eyes so full of secrets, that create in him such wants, watch him, not judging, and in the quiet of the twilight, he gives in to his weakness. “Tell me, what do you see when you look at me?”

“I see the Demon’s Hand,” Al Sa’iqa tells him, lips brushing his skin. “I see the pride of the League of Assassins. I see a mentor, a friend.”

His words leave him baffled and Al Sa’iqa takes delight in it, leans up and over him, pinning him to the bed, at his mercy. “I see a man,” he murmurs then. “I see a heart and a light that I never want to see go out. I see… a home.”

He hadn’t thought it possible for words to break him open, but somehow these have. He trembles, he settles, he watches. His face tilts up in a plea for something he does not understand.

Al Sa’iqa does, and claims the kiss he never knew he wanted. Then he pulls away and lays back down, leaving Al Sah-him stunned and speechless, a whirl of thoughts that quiet under a gentle touch.

“Sleep now,” is the whispered command and he breathes in deep, torn between wanting to argue and lost in the smile he feels against his thumb. Al Sa’iqa nuzzles it, kisses it, his fingers, his palm. His stained hands and all their bloody past burned with a pure fire, erasing everything.

“Tell me again,” he murmurs, because it’s become a cliff’s edge he is about to fall over. “What do you see?”

Al Sa’iqa watches him, breath warm on his skin, and smiles, something beautiful, tender, heartbreaking, and Al Sah-him is on the precipice, not understanding why he’s about to leap.

Until lips brush his ear, a voice low and haunting reverberating to his very soul. “I see  _ you.” _

And he falls.


	5. until the lambs have become lions

He is one of the secrets Al Sa’iqa carries now. A light in his eye, a quick smile, a kiss visible in the corner of his mouth. He is no closer to uncovering the other secrets there, but knowing he is held as close as the others to Al Sa’iqa… it’s baffling, really, how something so simple affects him so greatly.

He’s careful to keep it contained to night, when it’s just the two of them, no prying eyes to see. When he is no longer simply Al Sah-him, but someone new that Al Sa’iqa is slowly piecing together with an agonizing tenderness.

He still does not know who he is being formed into, this person who is not Al Sah-him but is, who is not Oliver Queen but is. Who is someone old and new and something in between.

Al Sa’iqa traces patterns over his heart, back and forth, a needle pulling a thread, stitching him together. His head is propped on his chest, the bruises of their training already fading away as he watches.

 _What have you done,_ he want’s to say it. _You have no right to change me like this._ He never wanted nor asked to have his ashes pulled so cleanly through him, dusting his skin. He feels weak like this, unsettled at the loss of control, and a part of him wants to scream and rail and run, never to return.

Trust - and such an amazing truth that was to uncover - trust is what keeps him in the bed, thumb tracing the man’s lip long into the night, far past when they should be dreaming. There’s an almost undercurrent of urgency here, laying as they are, that it will come to an end sooner rather than later. That it is limited somehow and this may be their only chance.

It unsettles him, but keeps him pliant, following the dance Al Sa’iqa continues to lead him through. What he sees is who he wants to know, trusting who he may become will not destroy them both.

“You can still be Al Sah-him,” Al Sa’iqa chuckles in the night, reading his worries in the crease of his brows, smoothing them away. “You are more than the mask you wear.”

“This mask is all I know,” he murmurs back, voice quiet in the stillness.

“But it is not all you are,” he is assured, then he is being kissed, baptized in loving fire, and until they sleep it is nothing but skin and warmth and the kisses in that mouth he so desperately chases.

“Let Al Sah-him be your mask,” Al Sa’iqa says in the morning, just before he opens the door and they must turn back to stone. “Duty forces you to wear it. Just know that when you’re with me, you are more than your mask.”

The words catch in his heart and he kisses the man softly, letting it stand as his answer before he walks through to the training grounds, tall and steady and firm, the Demon’s Hand.

He focuses on training with a single-mindedness, training through the doubts, the uncertainty, the want. He trains and pushes each emotion in their place, labels them, feels them, then sets them aside. He feels s though any who look upon him will see he is changed, but it is not so.

Al Sah-him they still call him, with just as much reverence as before. He has not failed to be this person and that maybe, perhaps, Al Sa’iqa is right. He can be this new person and be Al Sah-him too.

In the springs, he watches himself, sees the light he carries inside, and suddenly wonders how so many could be so blind.

Al Sa’iqa is no longer the only one with secrets in his eyes.

\---

It becomes clear to him, slowly, yet all at once, that Al Sah-him is the perfect mask.

He is gruff and commanding, people obey without question. If they don’t, they die. His wants have not made him weak enough not to do what must be done, and it saves them, even though he can sense his lightning’s disapproval. But Al Sa’iqa does not question it, allows it to be, for it is necessary, part of this life. He is still the Demon’s Hand, and such a position requires sacrifice.

He feels dirty the first time he kills a man while wearing this perfect mask. It’s an alien feeling, one he hasn’t felt since he was Oliver Queen.

 _What have you done,_ he wants to shout it, shaking apart, as he comes back covered in blood. _How can I be more than this?_

But Al Sa’iqa just washes him with care, takes him to bed, traces his heart and pieces him back together again.

They do not speak of it, but it is there, hovering, and he prays it is only him dwelling upon it.

“I’m not angry, or disappointed,” Al Sa’iqa hears him anyway, hears the silent screaming of his heart. “I understand this life and what it requires. You are still mine, and I still love you.”

 _How. Why._ These questions sear into his soul, hotter than any brand, but it is the kiss that follows his words that truly burns.

“Never be ashamed of what you must do,” Al Sa’iqa tells him then, cradling his face in his hands and kissing his cheeks, his nose, his jaw, his forehead. As though he is something precious, rather than drenched in blood.

“I will taint you,” he says is softly, the words barely there, and they are kissed away as though they never were.

“I don’t care,” he’s told, no nonsense. “I love you.”

It shouldn’t be possible, but he’s been trained to catch lies and this… this is no lie.

“I know,” he whispers, lost, and holds Al Sa’iqa close, thumb to his mouth, feeling him breathe. He watches him long after he is asleep, long when the lines of his face soften to reveal his true age. Barely a man, so young and hopeful once. In these quiet hours, he is so again, and that ugly feeling returns, that he is ruining this man simply by breathing.

“How you can love me I will never understand,” he tells him and closes his eyes.

He falls into those eyes and smile, even in his dreams.

\---

Ra’s calls upon him within the month, forcing him back to Nanda Parbat. He is full of questions and knowing looks when he asks after Al Sa’iqa, his great treasure.

He answers all, completely stone, completely Al Sah-him. Ra’s chuckles and seems to see something in him that he finds amusing, but presses no further.

He addresses the new recruits, takes on a few new warriors to prove their mettle to the Master. He executes four who fail without blinking.

Ra’s is pleased, ignorant to the ashes that dust his skin, the secrets in his eyes. He smiles and sees all he wishes, but somehow, this has passed his notice.

It’s Sara who sees. It’s always Sara who knows him, who sticks the thorns under his nails and reminds him who he used to be. In the quiet moments, she still calls him by his before name, just as he calls her by hers.

“You’re in love,” is all she has to say for him to know it’s true. “I’m happy for you.”

It’s an echo of the words he gave to her when she caught the eye of the Demon’s Heir. Nyssa does not like him, but he loves Sara, now and forever, and he is happy with how Nyssa looks upon her, like she is the moon itself, swept low in the tides to glow just for her.

He watches them embrace and wonders if he too looks the same holding Al Sa’iqa. He hates Nyssa for her strength, her ability to be so open. He wonders if he will ever be free enough to do so.

It’s three weeks of slow torture, being away from the mountains, and it takes such a time for Ra’s to get an inkling of it, to see something new in Al Sah-him that had not been there before.

“You miss the mountains,” he says, walking with him on the terrace. “I understand. A part of my heart has always yearned for the peace it’s offered.”

It’s not the full truth, but it’s not wrong either. He nods, bows his head. “Forgive me for my preoccupation.”

“No,” Ra’s chuckles and pats his arm. “You are Al Sah-him, the Hand of the Demon. You have earned the right to peace more than any other.”

He is Al Sah-him, but he is not. Ra’s is blinded by what he wishes to see and he is struck suddenly by the revelation that he is just a man, powerful and commanding, dangerous, but still. A man.

“Return there,” is the command. “Guard my treasure and find your peace.”

Then he leaves him to his thoughts, whirling like the snow of the mountains. He watches nothing, sees nothing, and wonders.

Al Sah-him is a mask, a perfect one. But what is underneath?

He aches with desperate want to fulfill that question, to return to the only one with the answer. And perhaps, finally, in securing it, he will take one of those secrets for himself and wonder no more.

After all, Al Sa’iqa is a mask too.

\---

It’s like coming home, returning to the mountain. Home in kisses, in touches, in shared breath and warmth.

He takes, that night, gives in to a want that has only grown. They move together in silent ecstasy, breathing and murmuring, moving slow against one another as the light fades over the skies.

Rocking above him, he moans with each touch that slides down his back, finds every scar, traced with awe. Al Sa’iqa is everywhere, around him, above him, below, inside, outside. They move until they blur and the lines between them no longer exist, no masks, no secrets, just two bodies and the warmth they chase inside one another.

He drowns, he rises, gasps for breath only to be pulled under once again, smothered in kisses, in heat, in the pleas for more and the urgent need to be closer. The pleasure rocks them, destroys them and oh, but he was wrong. Home is not the mountain, it is here, has been here all along.

He’s come home, he knows it as he’s pulled close at the peak, as he gasps and watches Al Sa’iqa release beneath him. It sends him tumbling, crashing, burning, and it is the most exquisite of pains, of pleasure, being held so tenderly as he rolls through each wave until it ebbs away.

He holds Al Sa’iqa close in the glow that follows, feeling sated and warm and… happy, for the first time since before.

Al Sa’iqa gives a content sigh against his chest, tracing in aimless symbols, a lightning bolt, an arrow. It’s… familiar, somehow, in the way he always has been. Familiar and new.

“Who were you, before?” he asks just as those eyes start to droop, almost too late for a real answer. He gets a smile and a kiss against the thumb that immediately presses to it.

“No one,” is what Al Sa’iqa says. “I was no one.”

It’s odd to hear, given how quickly he’s become _everything._ And it’s said with such a sadness, even with a smile, that he pulls the man closer as though to shield him from his own thoughts, protect him.

“What were you called?” he asks, tempting those secrets to unveil and give him something real to hold on to.

One does. “Barry.”

“Barry,” he murmurs it, praises it, caresses it on his tongue. A prayer, a curse. Everything. “Barry.”

Al Sa’iqa - _Barry,_ his mind thinks with fierce joy - shivers and looks up at him, reaches up to cup his face.

“Oliver,” he says, and it’s sweet music, another secret unfurled. So simple, but there is his answer. Oliver. Not Al Sah-him, not Oliver Queen. Just… _Oliver._

“How can this feel so familiar?” he asks, tracing Barry’s face. “Why does it feel like we’ve done this before?”

It’s rhetorical, romantic even, and he’s not expecting what Barry gives back.

“Because we have,” he says.

And everything shatters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have to wonder how many of you just screamed in confusion.


	6. and the rule of darkness is no more

At first he’s desperate for a laugh, perhaps a smile to ease the sudden tension. But it never comes.

Desperation bleeds to an odd panic, the feeling of something impossible hanging over them, and he can feel Barry - Al Sa’iqa once again, mask down - pull away.

He feels the man slipping through his fingers and he touches that mouth, turns him back to look into those eyes.

“Explain,” he says, commands it almost, and it seems Al Sah-him too has come back.

“This is not the first time we’ve lain together,” Al Sa’iqa says, quiet but firm, unwavering. “As lovers.”

And this is absurdity, for unless he’d been drugged and taken without knowledge, he knows of no other time. “What do you mean? This is our first time.”

Perhaps he is merely tired, confused, and for a moment he looks it and it almost feels like reprieve, until he shakes his head.

“For you, perhaps, but… not for me.”

“Barry?” He can feel him pull further away, even as he remains as stone beside him. He has no idea how to bring him back to life. That has always been Barry’s gift, not his.

“Ollie,” comes a soft plea, and it sounds so familiar, yet so foreign to his ears. He has not been _Ollie_ since he was Oliver Queen, yet there's no lie to the way it slides free from Barry's mouth, a caress, a prayer well known. “This is not my first first with you. I…”

He bites his lip, withdraws further. Oliver watches, wonders, does not understand. Barry watches him back and, with a sigh, it rushes out of him, like a dam breaking, a storm’s first thunder crack.

“Remember the assassin? How I saved you?”

He remembers like it were yesterday. He relives the panic of that morning daily. It catches in his throat and he simply nods, overcome with confusion and a sick, slickness twists inside.

“I wasn’t just lucky to be awake. I knew he was coming.”

“How could you know that?” he asks, desperate to understand. Those secrets are trembling in Barry’s eyes, trying to break free, and he is just as desperate to catch them, hold them all before they destroy everything.

“Because, once, he killed you, and I had to watch you die.”

He’s stunned silent by the words, confused because they hide no lie. Barry means this, more than anything he’s ever said, and he tries to think back, puzzle it through.

The sword, the sickening _squelch._ The rage in Barry’s face. He relives it, over and over, trying to find some clue.

It comes, swiftly then, and settles like awe in his chest. _You will not touch him again._

“How?” he gasps it, breathless in realization. Barry leans over him, captured easily by the thumb on his mouth, and it’s his only tether, his only hold. So easy to break, yet so heavy all the same.

“My speed,” he explains in the quiet. “I can travel back… each time you die I come back to the start of us, fall in love with you again and again and pray that I never lose you the way I have before.”

There’s a pain in his voice, true suffering, and he holds him close to protect him from all he can. “How many times?” he dares to ask it, needs to know.

“Four now,” Barry whispers, heartbroken. Tears fall from his broken eyes and he can do nothing for him but kiss them away, assure him he is there, he is real, the nightmares have not come true. Not yet.

Barry is hardly settled, but allows himself to be kissed, held close, petted and soothed. He falls into a fitful sleep and cries his name more than once, silent tears falling onto his chest as he watches, wonders, and waits.

In the morning, they retreat to the mountain, to the old caves far from prying eyes. They light a fire, spread out furs and blankets, lay together in the heat of the flames.

And in the fading light of day, Barry breaks. He speaks of death, of love, of loss. Pain and happiness and heartbreak. Suffering, as he has no right to suffer.

His last death, Barry does not speak of, not until he has listed he others. Drowning in the ice, the assassin. Oliver remembers how he was saved from both and holds him close, heart breaking at his silence, at the knowledge he’d left Barry to face the world alone, covered in blood and screams. He feels a guilt he has never known, powerful and something he cannot will away. It brands his soul in liquid fire, dripping through him, cooling on his skin.

But if he is tortured, it is nothing to Barry, who gasps and shakes and holds him as though he will disappear, because he has, before.

“And the last?” He has to know, though he hates himself for the need. Barry is silent against him and when he finally meets his eye, he is stone.

“Ra’s killed you, because you defected for me,” Barry murmurs, broken. “I was weak then, I didn’t know how to accept the League. But now I do… I think I understand how to love you better now.”

It’s absurd, hearing that, for none have loved him greater. But he does not get the chance to voice this, for it is stolen away on a kiss, and somehow he knows Barry has heard him all the same.

“I want to stay just like this, forever with you. You are what I need, exactly as you are. Promise me we’ll remain like this? Forever?”

He turns them, leans over him, and answers him with whispered words, kisses, the slide of his body over his. He takes all the secrets Barry has left as he is stripped bare of his own.

And as they make love beneath the stars, the snow, the fire, Oliver surrenders all. Al Sah-him. Oliver Queen. Oliver, Oliver, _Oliver._

It’s with pleasure he reminds Barry he is there. Kisses and breathless noises his promises. They come as one, blurred together, and lay in the aftermath, tangled so close Oliver doesn’t know where he ends and Barry begins.

 _I’m here,_ he tells him with a trace to his lips, the warmth of their bodies pressed so close, _I’m home._

And finally it’s enough. Barry breathes in joy, his eyes reigniting with a light only Oliver can bring, and he knows in that reflection his own eyes are the same.

Barry slips into his dreams, warm and wet and glowing, kisses in his lips and a smile in his heart. And when he dreams, he cries no more.

Oliver watches.  
 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading and for your support <3 Hope you enjoyed.


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